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The fragile state of the economy is leaving everyone guessing on whether we will get a double dip recession or whether there will be a slow steady rise back from the abyss. Whatever happens, every economist will be claiming they were right – because they always do!
However this makes it very tough for the public to know what to do on buying, selling and renting. There are many hours being spent in institutions and developers contemplating the creation of a workable and sustainable private rented sector.
Now your initial reaction might be there is one. However, what we currently have is a very amateur, ‘kitchen table’ industry dominated by small landlords and a huge diversity of ownership. There are one or two exceptions such as Dorrington and Grainger but, by and large, residential rented property has never become an investment class in the way all other areas of property have.
So we have the prospect of dedicated buildings owned by pension funds and let out to the private rented sector. The needs and requirements will be different in terms of making sure they can extract a reasonable return on investment. But the biggest handicap is the wealth of legislation and the constraints imposed by conflicting legislation such as health and safety, employment and company law aside from the property laws.
So we have the prospect of an exciting 2010 in seeing what transpires and the hope that licensing and regulation can be enacted to replace the reams of legislation.
17 Mar 2010 14:40:19